Economic and Social Impact of Drug Policies · 8.3 Impacts on Employment and Social Cohesion

The criterion is not established.

Mexico has broad rural-development programmes providing periodic payments to participants. Technical cooperation on alternative development also exists. However, no intervention was identified that verifiably linked producers or workers previously associated with illicit crops to jobs, paid labour, self-employment, or alternative legal activities created specifically as a consequence of crop substitution.

The existence of agroforestry work or economic transfers in areas where illicit cultivation is also documented does not establish that such employment is attributable to substitution. The evidence identified for I194 establishes, on a limited and localized basis, economic compensation associated with abandonment of opium-poppy cultivation, but it does not demonstrate employment created as a result of that transition.

No data were found on the number of jobs created, labour income, duration, formality, self-employment, permanence, or territorial distribution of employment attributable to illicit-crop substitution.

The indicator therefore receives a red classification. X is not activated because the identified international cooperation did not establish domestic implementation with verifiable employment outcomes attributable to substitution.